The first part of this comparison covered the basics of Goodnotes and Noteful. In this part two, we’re going to look at all the items you can add in both apps to see which app gives you the most options.
Shapes
Let’s start with shapes, for which both apps have a dedicated shapes tool. Noteful’s shapes tool is limited to these ten shapes. The cloud shape you can’t hand-draw, and in that case, you definitely want to use the shapes tool. But the other regular shapes you definitely can draw them. In Goodnotes, whether or not you select the shapes tool, you have to hand-draw most shapes, except the clouds. That is probably why Noteful has a dedicated shape for it. In either app, you can draw both regular and irregular shapes.Â
You can also add fill to your shapes, but Noteful is more flexible with that because you can add or remove a fill colour from your shape. It can either be translucent or opaque, but it has to be the same colour. In Goodnotes, once you’ve drawn a shape without a fill colour, you can’t change it. The same applies to your filled shapes. But, you can change the fill colour, so your shape border is different from your fill colour. The only catch is that, this doesn’t work for your circles and circular apps. I don’t use shapes much in my notes, but I appreciate how that’s helpful where you have different colours for your shape borders.
Shapes aren’t very flexible in Goodnotes, though. Because after changing the colour and adjusting it a little bit, there’s pretty much nothing else you can do with your shapes. In Noteful, you can adjust your shapes, change their border type to make it dashed or dotted. In Goodnotes, you have to draw them like that; once drawn, you can’t change them. At least they have a fill colour. In Noteful, once your shape border is dashed or dotted, you can’t fill it.
Removing the shape border in Goodnotes is possible as a workaround. But in Noteful, it’s an option you have for your notes. This also lets you adjust the border thickness from three thickness options, but the variety is not impressive. Another feature you have in Noteful that you don’t get in Goodnotes is opacity for your shape. There’s no clear winner on this one; both apps have a decent shapes tool. Did you find a feature that’s made you lean towards one app? Do tell.
Tape
Tape covers parts of your notes to help you with active recall. Noteful has five fixed sizes for your tape, but Goodnotes has a range from 1-15.4 mm. The range in Noteful is more practical, even though it is fixed because the thinnest in Goodnotes is too thin, but the thickest is not thick enough. The apps also differ in how your tape looks. I prefer the plain one in Goodnotes, that’s because I am a minimalist. I’ll get anything plain any day over something that is not.
Both apps support any colour you want for your tape, and it’s fairly easy to do in either app. When revealing your answers, Goodnotes leaves a light highlight on it, which I really like. Noteful has a different approach to that, which we’re used to because it’s the setup you have in almost every other app. Noteful can reveal or hide all the answers on the page at once; an option you don’t get with Goodnotes. It also has a tape that can cover massive parts of your notes. Such a task is a painful one in Goodnotes because it’s 15 mm is really not that thick. Though, I prefer the look in Goodnotes, the tape is more functional in Noteful. So, I’ll choose that one any day. Which of the two do you prefer?
Text Boxes
Both apps have a decent collection of fonts, and they support custom ones. They both have a good range for your font size. Though they have different scales for it, both work pretty well. They will look about the same size. I love how easy it is to change your font colour for all the text in your text box, for both apps. In Noteful, formatting is also that easy, but with Goodnotes, you have to select the text, which can be confusing. Especially when you want to format all your text. You also get alignment options, which are pretty similar.
In both apps, you can add a background colour for your text box. In Goodnotes, the background and border colour for your text can be different; an option you don’t have in Noteful. But, your background can be translucent, which you can’t do in Goodnotes. The border thickness for text boxes in Noteful is terrible because the options look the same. Goodnotes has a better setup because it’s very easy to tell the thinnest and thickest options you have for your border. Noteful then makes up for that with different border types that can be dashed or dotted. Goodnotes doesn’t have that.
In both apps, you can resize and rotate your text boxes. You can save one favourite style for your text boxes in both Noteful and Goodnotes. More would be nice to have. Noteful lets you add web links to your notes. Just paste it into your text box, but it doesn’t look or feel great. Who else prefers dressing up their links in text? That is the option you have in Goodnotes, and I absolutely love it. Even better, you can link to pages in any notebooks and even those in the same notebook. Not many note-taking apps support hyperlinks, so this is exciting. Goodnotes definitely takes the crown for this one. Text boxes are definitely much better in Goodnotes than they are in Noteful.
Body Text
Goodnotes also has body text− text that does not go into textboxes. But rather directly on the page. And this opens an opportunity for more structured typed notes with headings, captions, and lists. It’s an option you don’t get with Noteful, but it’s also still very basic in Goodnotes. I am happy to see all the supported levels for the unnumbered lists and hope to see that for the numbered lists in the future. You then get text alignment and the basic formatting options, and that’s pretty much all there is to body text in Goodnotes. Are any of you guys using body text in your notes? It’s great to have, but for a handwriting note-taking app, it’s probably not necessary.
Photos
I like that in Noteful you can resize your image without worrying about its rotation. We were hoping that Goodnotes would have separated the two by now, but I guess not. Both apps can crop your image as a rectangle and freely. You can only truly appreciate freehand cropping in Noteful, though because of the image frames you get in the app. Goodnotes doesn’t have any frames for your images. It also doesn’t have an opacity option, which Noteful does. Images are better in Noteful than they are in Goodnotes 6.
Stickers
Goodnotes has a better collection of stickers than Noteful, which is strange because the stickers in Goodnotes aren’t even that great. In Noteful, the sample stickers available are just to show you that you can have stickers, but you won’t get much to work with. In both apps, you’ll have to bring in your own stickers and it’s fairly easy to do that. I wish both apps supported GIFs because these are actually animated stickers. In both apps, you can also create custom stickers if you like.
The cool thing about sticker in Noteful is that you can use the stickers from your keyboard as well. They pretty easy to use once you have them in the app. You can’t do that in Goodnotes.
Audio Recordings
The recording tool in both apps is alright. It’s acceptable, only Notability has an exciting playback tool so nothing to be super excited about, especially in Noteful. Goodnotes, on the other had has live transcription that happens on device. It makes it much more useful than the one in Noteful if you prefer working with text in the app. It doesn’t make sense to me, though, in a handwriting note-taking app. How do you guys feel about that?
Timers
Timers are the new hot feature in handwriting note-taking apps. Which timers do you guys prefer: a big or small one? The one in Goodnotes is obvious too big because it’s taking the up too much space, but I think the one in Noteful is perfect and would love it if it stayed visible. The laps in Goodnotes are great to have for a stopwatch, but you don’t get that in Noteful. I really like how Noteful has implemented this tool. The time’s up warning is great, but Goodnotes gives you more; modes and history. You can save your favourite timers and track past sessions. If you use the tool often, those options are important. Which of these two do you like?
Sticky Notes
Until recently, sticky notes have been limited to comments. But, now they seem like an independent feature. ‘Seem’ being the keyword because we can still reply to our sticky notes. I like how they are evolving though, because now the comment stickies have three sizes and colour options. We can also handwrite on them and it actually sticks. The developers still have a lot of work on these, though, but the progress is exciting.
Lasso Tool
With all the items we can add to our notes, a selective lasso tool is a must have. Goodnotes is selective more items than Noteful, but it is not selective for the highlighter. I don’t remember ever wanting to move the highlighter tool. The app is also selective for shapes and images, but Goodnotes is only selective for images alone. It is also selective for tape, comments, and sticky notes which Noteful is not.
But perhaps more important than selectivity is the ability to move items across pages. Goodnotes can do that only if you’re using the lasso tool. We still can’t just pick up items and move them across pages. Goodnotes is the first handwriting note-taking app I’ve seen to have this limitation. In Noteful, you can easily pick up anything and move it anywhere you like, and that makes for a better user experience.
Conclusion
At this point, I can’t decide which app I would go for. I was a Noteful user for a long time, and still love the app it’s just that my note-taking needs have changed. So far, nothing in Goodnotes has moved my heart, and I am curious to know if you’re a Goodnotes user are you leaning towards Noteful yet? Can’t wait to see how the tide changes with the third part of this review.
